Music Notes: Taylor Swift gets Gubernatorial, Phoebe Bridgers gets muted, Olivia Rodrigo gets "Sour"
Hello again! How are you? Doing well? That’s great news.
It’s Monday, so it’s yet another edition of Music Notes. If you’re a Clairo stan who randomly followed my newsletter from Thursday’s review of Sling, welcome! I hope this is to your liking. As for the project I teased at the end of the review, that’s actually coming in a few weeks. Don’t rush it. It’s cool though, I promise you’ll like it.
Today, we’re going to talk about some female singer-songwriters in the headlines from the past week. I didn’t plan this, it just kind of turned out like that. Let’s get started with Taylor.
Taylor Swift gets Gubernatorial
Virginians have about three weeks until they have a chance to decide on their Governor for the next four years. They could go with Terry McAullife, the Democrat that held the seat for the past four years, or they could go for the Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin.
How does this link to American treasure and country, pop, and folk master Taylor Swift?
This fascinating NPR article (shoutout to my place of work) delves into the details, but the basic rundown is this: Youngkin is the former co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, which financially backed the sale of Taylor Swift’s master recordings to Ithaca Holdings in 2019.
Ithaca Holdings, of course, was owned by Scooter Braun at the time, and Swift has been struggling to regain control over her own intellectual property for a long time, even going so far as to re-record her musical catalogue to do so.
Governor McAullife knows that many are sympathetic to Swift’s cause, and is thus using Youngkin’s relationship with the Carlyle Group to gain leverage in the court of public opinion.
His (heavily targeted) Facebook ads are even using #WeStandWithTaylor, a hashtag mostly used by Swift’s fans. I personally think the idea is genius, but Youngkin’s representation has called the move “pathetic.”
This, of course, is not even close to the first time that American political action has been tied to music and musicians. It is, however, probably the first time that one politician has attacked another over the sale of media.
Usually, it’s that musicians don’t like certain politicians using their music, or that musicians offer their services to politicians they like in order to rally their fan base around said politician.
According to some local sources, the race is tightening as we approach the finish line. We’ll see if Taylor can give McAullife the extra push he needs for reelection. Would she have to get a shoutout in his acceptance speech?
Phoebe Bridgers gets muted
EDITOR’s NOTE: I was gonna write this whole section on Phoebe Bridgers getting muted during her set at ACL, but WHILE I WAS WRITING IT, ACL apologized to Bridgers and donated money to the Texas Abortion Funds. So, enjoy this outdated piece of work, I guess.
Bridgers had reservations about playing in Texas in the first place, which is why the entirety of the revenue behind her cover of Bo Burnham’s “Funny Feeling” is going to the Texas Abortion Funds.
Now, the second weekend of ACL ends in controversy, after the festival cut off the sound before Bridgers could finish “I Know the End,” the manifestation of an existential meltdown and the last track off of her smash hit album “Punisher.”
There are a few elements that are really upsetting. She apparently only went one or two minutes over her scheduled time. “I Know the End” is the kind of song that fans really really want to hear. ACL hasn’t confirmed whether or not this was purposeful yet.
If you’re gonna make a dumb decision like this, you should probably stand behind it. This was also Bridgers’ SECOND performance at the festival as a HEADLINER, so it’s ridiculous that she wouldn’t be able to spend a little extra time capping off her performance.
It’s ACL’s loss, because there’s no way she’s ever gonna perform there again, and the fantastic musicians associated with her probably won’t either. Good luck finding a great singer-songwriter to fill your stage!
*SECOND EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s the article that Bridgers posted thanking the festival. She also deleted her “lol fuck acl” tweet that she posted when the incident occurred.
Olivia Rodrigo gets “Sour”
So, before we get into this, I’m gonna clarify: I liked “Sour,” and I think Olivia Rodrigo has a lot of potential. She will definitely be a beloved pop star by the time her career is finished.
That being said, “Sour” is full of interpolated melodies, and Rodrigo is definitely paying for it. She’s paying Taylor Swift (like from the Gubernatorial race!), Paramore, Elvis Costello, and others, for use of their artistic ideas.
This has been the case since the May release of “Sour,” but it became more of a hot-button issue last month, when it was reported that Rodrigo was giving millions to both Swift and Paramore.
In the October issue of Teen Vogue, a cool magazine for cool teens who still read magazines, Rodrigo had this to say about the allegations:
"What's so beautiful about music is that it can be so inspired by music that's come out in the past. Every single artist is inspired by artists who have come before them. It's sort of a fun, beautiful sharing process. Nothing in music is ever new. There's four chords in every song. That's the fun part - trying to make that your own."
On the surface, she’s right - nobody owns a chord progression. Billions upon billions of songs have been written within the constraints of the circle of fifths.
Pop music especially finds itself reusing chord progressions almost constantly, because what’s pleasing to the ears of the masses is often less complex, and thus easier to replicate.
You can also certainly make chord progressions your own, by adding lyrics and a melody, changing up the instruments the chords are played on, the options are endless.
The problem is, that’s not what people are accusing her of doing. She obviously made an attempt to make her own music, but she also definitely didn’t make enough of an attempt to make it her own.
This is subjective, but other plagiarism cases have had to be pointed out to me in the past. I’ve heard both “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison and “She’s So Fine” by the Chiffons, but I didn’t put the two together until someone (probably a Watchmojo video at 1AM when I was 13) pointed it out to me.
When I first heard Olivia Rodrigo’s “Brutal,” I was like, “oh hey this is just an Elvis Costello song.” Same with “Good 4 U” and Paramore. I don’t doubt that all modern music is inspired and influenced by music of the past, Olivia, but you’re also supposed to make it different enough to fully avoid comparison.
Again, I wanna say this: Olivia Rodrigo will be an incredible success. I think her next album is going to be really individualistic and interesting, simply because of all of the accusations of plagiarism. She’s going to write something really interesting, and I’m gonna enjoy listening to it. But for now, you gotta pay the musical piper, Olivia.
Alright, that’s what I’ve got for you this week. This was fun! We should do this again sometime. Maybe Thursday? How does a classic album review sound?
Here’s a playlist I made a couple of years ago that I like to listen to when it gets cloudy out, because the weather is cooling down in my neck of the woods.
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Good to talk to you. See you on Thursday.
I think you're right; Rodrigo will be fine. All artists evolve. Not all of them have to do it under a billion candle-watt light the way she has.
Also: Great playlist! Very happy to see Parquet Courts on there.